


Though the Oak Tree Shatters

by ArchangelUnmei



Series: The Nation Rings [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, Existentialism, Gen, M/M, Post WWII, formalized alliances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchangelUnmei/pseuds/ArchangelUnmei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Gilbert shrugs, an uneasy slide of his shoulders. He doesn't resist the pull of France's hands, following him down the hall and into the kitchen. "I don't know. West won't see me, I thought I'd head for Konigsburg, get my bearings and wait for... whatever." It's an old tactic, time-worn for Nations, to retreat to the capital, the heart, in times of trouble. The last stronghold for Prussia, and they both know it.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though the Oak Tree Shatters

**Author's Note:**

> Well, you guys wanted more with rings. Have some fluffy, angsty stuff with a scoop of Nation-flavoured existentialism on top.
> 
> Minor hints of France/England if you want to read into it. This is set in the same 'verse as _Wrought Iron and Amethyst_ , just to be clear.

_I am a Prussian, know ye my colours?_  
 _The flag floats black and white before me;_  
 _that for freedom's sake my fathers died,_  
 _knowing that, it hints my colours._  
 _Never will I trembling quail,_  
 _I will dare to be like them._  
 _Be it a rainy day, be it cheerful sunshine,_  
 _I am a Prussian, want nothing but to be a Prussian._

France is so very tired. 

It's been a long day, setting up the new government and continuing the rebuilding, the phantoms of Vichy still aching down in his bones. 1946 has not been a great year, though it's been far better than the ones immediately before it. It's well after dark when he finally makes it home, though it lifts his spirits a little to see Paris so alight again, his people beginning to relearn what 'normal' and 'happy' mean after the long occupation. Their hope gives him the strength to move ahead. 

He hangs his coat by the door and toes off his shoes, curling his toes in the thick carpet, reveling in it. It's still a little novel to be back in his own house, warm and draft-free and threadbare from comfortable age rather than penniless necessity. 

His plans for the evening include a glass of wine (still a little bit of an indulgence, but France feels entitled) and listening to the radio for a little while before going to bed. Those plans are interrupted when the doorbell rings just as he's about to pour the wine. He sighs, seriously considering ignoring it, but it could easily be something important, too important to wait. He pads into the front hall, not bothering to check out the window because he fully expects to see one of his officials when he opens the door. 

The streetlight outside his house is dim (but at least it's lit), so for a minute all France sees is the figure of a man, average height and slender, wrapped up in a long dark coat and brimmed hat to keep the misty rain off. His hat is pulled low, France spends a moment trying to identify which page or secretary this might be sent to fetch him, but then the young man raises his head and France realizes with a chill he is not _young_ at all. 

Prussia's red eyes gleam in the low light, shoulders hunched and hands tucked into his pockets. France inhales sharply, heart suddenly pounding in his throat, and Prussia must see it because he gives a dry, toneless little laugh. "I'm not here to do anything, France. You could probably knock me over yourself at this point." 

France frowns, forcing himself to relax a little. Prussia looks just as war-weary as the rest of them, just as tattered. They've stood and stared at each other just like this after a hundred other battles and a dozen other wars, some they've fought allied and others opposing. It's nothing new for their kind, and France feels his heart soften. 

"Why are you here, then?" 

Prussia takes a careful breath, exhales a cloud of steam into the cool night. France catches a whiff of battlefield, the scent of slaughter on Prussia's breath, and wrinkles his nose. 

"I'm here because I don't exist anymore." 

For an instant, France feels the floor drop out from under his feet, staring at Prussia and remembering what revolution feels like, what it means to be _dissolved_. (The bitter ache of feeling Vichy in his heart _still_ hasn't totally left, probably won't for a long time.) 

"Pr-" To France's horror, he realizes he can't physically say Prussia's name. It sticks in his throat and he can't make it form, has to swallow it down and try again. " _Gilbert_." 

Gilbert gives him a sad, understanding sort of grin. France swallows hard again, stomach churning. Recent history be damned, he's known Gilbert since before either of them even had proper names, barefoot and untamed and wild, running together from the Baltic to the Mediterranean to avoid the gazes of their elders (all of them long gone). France feels sick at the thought that Gilbert might be following. 

He reaches for Gilbert, for a dizzy moment thinking that his fingers will pass right through. To his relief, he's able to grasp the threadbare sleeve, pull Gilbert into the front hall to shut the door behind them. 

Gilbert's eyes flick down to his hands, and France follows his gaze despite knowing what he'll see. He'd just put his rings back on last week, needing the reminder, the reassurance that he is not alone. One hand holds England's, America's, Canada's, Australia's and New Zealand's (the last two slipped together onto his pinkie because the suggestion of that had made tired, haggard England laugh for the first time in a very long time.) His other hand is disorientingly lighter, wearing only Belgium's, Netherlands' and Luxembourg's in a show of support and solidarity. 

Gilbert stares at France's hands for a long minute, then draws his own hands out of his pockets. 

His fingers are empty, nails chipped and torn and wearing no rings. 

(The last time France saw him in person, at the official surrender, his hands had been full; Germany's and both Italies' and Austria's and Hungary's. France remembers because he'd noticed Prussia _wasn't_ wearing the Vichy ring that Germany had had made. France had wondered at that, but not gotten the chance to ask him why.) 

France grabs his hands, shivering a little at how cold and thin they are, dry skin stretched over bone. He squeezes, feeling Gilbert's knuckles moving against his palms, and for a few moments they stand there like that, staring at each other and breathing. (France wonders faintly whether he's trying to hold Gilbert in this world, whether he'll disappear the moment France lets go.) 

"...You weren't at the dissolution ceremony," Gilbert says finally, his voice low and almost the most tired France has ever heard him. "So I came to give you your ring back." 

"I didn't know," France says, feeling weirdly numb and tingly all at once, his heart pounding too hard and his stomach turning over. It reminds him oddly of the first moments after being shot, before the pain sets in. "I've been so busy getting the new government organized, and traveling to help with the rebuilding, no one told me..." 

"Nah, I'm not surprised." Gilbert gives him a sad, twisted little smile. "We've been friends more often than we've been enemies over the years, you and I." 

France wants to say something that he knows is disgustingly sentimental, something about how they've _always_ been friends, or that Nations never stay true enemies for long, but the words stick in his throat. They would be lies anyway, and Gilbert's sad smile says he knows it too. The war is still too close against their backs, the memory of Germany's hands around his throat and Prussia standing by silent. 

"...So let me just give you your ring and you can give me back Prussia's if you want-" France shivers again, and when Gilbert tries to pull his hands away to reach for his pockets, France tightens his grip to keep him from doing it. He takes a step back, pulling Gilbert with him further into the house. 

"Gil, what's going to happen to you now?" 

Gilbert shrugs, an uneasy slide of his shoulders. He doesn't resist the pull of France's hands, following him down the hall and into the kitchen. "I don't know. West won't see me, I thought I'd head for Konigsburg, get my bearings and wait for... whatever." It's an old tactic, time-worn for Nations, to retreat to the capital, the heart, in times of trouble. The last stronghold for Prussia, and they both know it. 

France frowns, urging Gilbert into a chair. For an instant he ponders between coffee and tea, then remembers coffee is still rationed and England drank the rest of the tea last week. Abandoning both, he reaches for the bottle of wine, startling a wane little laugh out of Gilbert in the process. "Konigsburg is part of Lithuania now, isn't it?" 

"Russia," Gilbert looks just a bit more colorless than he did a moment ago, and France doesn't blame him. He remembers the wintery hell of Napoleon's ill-fated invasion, and he's heard rumors that Prussia had been the commander for the eastern front. "I doubt I'll get very far, but I don't have anywhere else to go." 

"Stop that," France can't remember ever hearing Gilbert talk like this before, even when they were thigh deep in mud and blood behind enemy lines with their horses shot out from under them. "That's not the Gilbert I know." 

Gilbert looks up at him. He looks almost startled to hear France say that, and France takes a shaky breath, feeling almost desperate (but that's nothing new, these days). "The Gilbert Beilschmidt _I've_ known for almost nine hundred years wouldn't be slinking off with his tail between his legs, waiting for Death to catch up with him. He'd make a tactical retreat, yes, but he'd be planning on how to spin this to his advantage and keep himself around, whether as Prussia or something entirely new." 

Gilbert stares at him for a moment longer, and then something in his eyes changes, relaxes. He reaches up to curl his fingers in France's collar, not ungently, and pulls him down for a kiss. France returns it easily, trying to project as much warmth into it as he can, reaching up to cup a hand along Gilbert's jaw. The kiss breaks naturally when they need to breathe, and France murmurs, "Neither of us are who we used to be. Changing hurts, but it's survivable. You weren't always Prussia either, but you've always been Gil." 

Gilbert smiles at him, a little, enough that he doesn't look quite so ghostly. "Merci, Fran." 

"Don't start speaking French now, your accent is atrocious." France strokes his cheek gently. Gilbert has shadows under his eyes, but France has no room to talk. "Though not as bad as England's." 

Gilbert winces slightly at the name and reaches for the wine. For a moment concern wars with a sort of dark amusement, and France settles for giving his shoulder a squeeze and kneeling down in front of him. "Give me my ring, then." 

Gilbert seems to wilt, his shoulders slumping, but he makes no protest. He reaches into his pocket to draw out the ring that's as familiar to France as the flow of the Seine. The band is relatively new, the gold retooled just after Napoleon's fall, elegant swirls and fleur-de-lys. The stone isn't the original one either, but it is far older. (The original stone was a quartz dug out of the Alps and carved by hand, one of the first stones he'd ever given out as a sovereign Nation. Later he'd switched it for the current sapphire, to honor his and Prussia's first formal alliance.) 

France takes it from Gilbert, turns it over in his hands with a faint smile, fingers finding the etching along the inside of the band. _'Francis Bonnefoy'_ , the constant reminder that they are men as well as Nations, men beyond being Nations. 

Ignoring Gilbert's miserable expression, France takes his hand, slides the ring onto Gilbert's left pointer, the position usually reserved for primary allies (where Germany's had been for the last hundred-odd years). It looks a little strange, one ring worn alone, but it looks far better than Gilbert's empty hands. 

"Fran..." Gilbert's voice is hushed, bewildered, but he curls his hands around France's, holding on tight. France looks up at him and smiles, seeing the gratefulness in Gilbert's eyes that he can't quite bring himself to voice. 

"Hush now," France squeezes his hands in return, standing and tugging to draw Gilbert up with him. "You're not getting Prussia's ring back from me, so don't ask. It's the most comfortable ring I've ever worn." 

He feels Gilbert jolt a little over that. "Even after-" 

"I said _hush_ ," That comes out a little sharper than he means it to, and Gilbert stops walking. France turns to face him so they're standing together in the doorway to his bedroom. (There's probably something very ironic and symbolic about that, but France decides not to think on that too closely.) 

"...It's impossible to fully separate Nation and man," he says after a minute, still holding tightly to Gilbert's hands. "We make choices irregardless of what our people and politicians influence us to do. I will not be able to stand next to Germany for a long while yet without flinching, even though I watched Ludwig grow up and I hold great affection for him. That is one of the great difficulties we face, being what we are. You and Germany and Italy _unmade_ me, overran me and killed my people. But now England and Russia and I are doing the same to you." 

"You weren't there," Gilbert tries to protest, and France gives him a sad smile. 

"No, but I should have been. I'm sure my Boss was." He holds Gilbert's gaze. "What I mean is, yes you hurt me. But I have hurt you back. That is what war does, that is what we are used to, and that is what will happen again in the future. It does not make me love you any less." 

Gilbert doesn't seem to know what to say to that, so France just pulls him forward and envelopes him in a tight hug. "I have far more good memories of you than bad, Gilbert. These ghosts will fade in time." 

Gilbert relaxes against him, lets his head rest on France's shoulder. They stay like that for a long while, leaning against the door frame. 

In the morning, France rises early enough to see him off, still soft and tousled from sleep and wrapped up in a tattered housecoat (they both pretend they don't notice the Union Flag embroidered on the pocket). France makes breakfast and they share the last of the wine. 

France steals a last kiss at the door and then East Germany leaves, wearing France's ring and walking into the rising sun. 

_And when the evil storm roars around me,_  
 _the night burns in lightning's blaze;_  
 _Even so, it has stormed worse in the world already,_  
 _and what didn't tremble was the Prussian courage._  
 _May rock and oak tree shatter,_  
 _I will not tremble._

_May it storm, may it thunder, may lightning strike wildly:_  
 _I am a Prussian, want nothing to be but a Prussian._

**Author's Note:**

> The poetry at the beginning and end are the first and fourth stanzas of the _Preußenlied_ (translated from German, of course), one of the national anthems of Prussia and the one most associated with it today. The song is actually kick-ass, you should go check it out.


End file.
